Security news
Security news8 October 2002
Mac users cannot be infected by Bugbear worm
Sophos technical support has received a number of calls from users of Apple Macintosh computers concerned they may have been infected by the W32/Bugbear-A worm.
W32/Bugbear-A, like some other recent worms such as W32/Klez-H and W32/Yaha-E, can forge the From: and Reply-To: information in the email header. This means the infected email may appear to come from someone who is not really infected with the worm and has two possible consequences:
- If you receive an infected email and reply to the apparent sender you are not communicating with the person who really sent you the virus. For that reason, they may continue to be unaware that they have a virus infection.
- If you receive an infected email and reply to the apparent sender you may be telling someone who is not infected that they are infected with a virus. This may result in the recipient panicking that they are infected, and possibly taking drastic inappropriate action, when they had no cause for concern.
Users of Apple Macintosh computers, however, cannot be infected by these Windows viruses.
Interestingly, some viruses (for instance, W32/Klez-H and W32/Yaha-E) have even deliberately forged mail headers in order to pretend to have come from anti-virus companies.
